The President himself is very active on social media as he does video blogging on his YouTube channel and regularly updates his Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts. (Shutterstock/File)
Amid his busy schedule, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo made time to attend the 60th Dies Natalis anniversary of Padjadjaran University (Unpad) in Bandung held on Sept. 11 at the Graha Sanusi Hardjadinata, Unpad.
During his speech, Jokowi made an interesting statement about opening a social media major in universities.
“We need to change. Let’s say the economics faculty, it should offer more than management and accounting majors; there should be logistics management, retail management and online store programs, or majors, too. The same thing with social and political sciences faculty, students in this faculty need to learn about social media as well,” he said.
The President himself is very active on social media as he does video blogging on his YouTube channel and regularly updates his Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.
Jokowi explained that the rapid change in technology will change the landscape of global politics, which in effect will change the national and regional political scenes.
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In the end, economic landscape will also change as evidenced in the closing of many physical retail shops due to the rise of online shopping and artificial intelligence.
“If we don’t anticipate this, it will become a threat to our nation, especially in terms of competition,” told Jokowi.
The President wanted universities such as Unpad to anticipate these rapid changes and prepare the millennial generation who will rule the market in the next 10 years. He described millenials as independent, internet savvy, love to work together and innovative.
Currently Indonesia has 144 million internet users, which makes it among the top three of the world’s internet users.
Tourism Minister Arief Yahya, who accompanied the President at the event, added that Bandung Institute of Tourism (STP Bandung) has created a specific student activity unit (UKM) called Social Media. The Tourism Ministry itself plans to implement this program to other tourism institutions that are under the ministry, such as STP Nusa Dua Bali, Poltekpar Palembang, Poltekpar Lombok, Akpar Medan and Poltekpar Makassar.
He explained that the ministry acknowledges four different types of media known as POSE: Paid media, Owned Media, Social Media and Endorser.
Arief himself has implemented the go-digital concept in the ministry since October 2016 in order to achieve the target of 20 million foreign tourists in 2019. (kes)
[“Source-thejakartapost”]